


Girls Don't

by PunkHazard



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Nonbinary Character, Other, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 18:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mako's still trying to figure out this whole gender thing and doesn't trust a lot of people to understand, but the triplets were never in doubt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girls Don't

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time observing rather than speaking, responding or interjecting only when there's a point to be made, Mako rarely works through any thoughts out loud. The triplets have that in common as well-- they're notorious chatterboxes, always quick with a comeback or a mediocre pun, but any serious thinking they do on their own.

They don't talk much in their room (nothing needs to be said out loud between them), and Mako likes to spend time there, when a block in Danger's restoration schedule frees up. The four of them fell into a routine quickly and easily, helped along by the Weis' natural tendency to pull anyone they care about into their circle, then never letting go. 

Mako's set to trash all three of them in their last round of Big Two, dressed in one of Cheung's oversized gym shorts (cinched loosely at the waist) and one of Hu's old t-shirts (the material's worn thin around the shoulders and collar, but it's soft and loose and comfortable). Mako slaps down the last five cards in hand, a full house of kings on sixes, winning the game. Jin goes next, triumphantly throwing his last cards, a pair of threes, onto the pile. Then he falls sideways to land with his head in Mako's lap, slinging his feet across Hu's legs.

He grins when Mako's hand sneaks under his shirt, fingers tracing the line of his collarbones, then palm pressed to the flat of his chest. Cheung drags Hu into a headlock once they've taken their last few turns, the youngest brother narrowly escaping his third loss in a row.

「Let's play something else,」 Cheung suggests, shifting his weight to more efficiently pin Hu. The three of them take every chance they can get to sharpen their skills, even after a whole day in the Kwoon-- Mako's equal parts reassured and irritated, that the front line of the Asian Pacific against kaiju is so diligent, but so easily distracted. Hu's hand slips between the mattresses of the beds they'd pushed together as he tries to thrash his brother off, losing any traction he'd gained and surrendering with a deep sigh.

「You three can play,」 Mako tells them, head drooping forward to rest tiredly against Jin's chest, arms folded over him. 「I'll watch.」

「What're you thinking about?」 Cheung asks immediately, accustomed as he is to recognizing patterns and any changes from routine. Mako doesn't always play with them, but sitting out entirely isn't usual.

「You only get like this when restoration's stalling,」 Hu chimes in when Cheung releases him, 「or when we're arguing, or when the Marshal turns you down for some unreasonable upgrade.」

「They are _perfectly reasonable_ requests--」

「You're not happy about something,」 Jin interrupts, sitting up and pressing a rough kiss to Mako's temple, 「so talk to us.」

Mulling it over for a second, Mako leans into Cheung's side and finally asks, 「Do you ever not feel like boys?」

The triplets exchange a look, identical expressions of confusion crinkling their features. 「We don't think about being guys 24/7 or anything,」 Cheung volunteers. 「Do girls think about it constantly?」

「I don't know. I guess I'm asking if you ever feel like you're not what everyone expects you to be.」

「You mean, do we feel like girls?」 Hu asks, glancing briefly at Jin. 「Our mom used to put me and Jin-ge in dresses because she wanted daughters, but we never wanted to be girls.」

「She thought it'd be cute if I had two little sisters,」 Cheung adds. 「They were really cute.」

「That's not what I meant,」 Mako sighs, prepared to drop the subject. But the Weis are as science-minded as anyone in the Shatterdome, and they move forward, intensely curious looks on their faces. 「I mean-- hm. Do you think of me as a girl?」

「You don't do a lot of girly stuff,」 Jin observes, 「but it doesn't mean you're not a girl. Xiaoyu punched me once for saying she's like a guy. _'Who'd want to be a boy? You're all jerks! Just because I'm not making a fuss about this doesn't mean I'm not still a girl!'_ 」

Cheung swipes a hand across the fuzz on the back of Jin's head while Hu snickers. 「Right after you broke up with her, though.」

「It was mutual!」

「That's not what I mean either,」 Mako tries again, arms flailing slightly in agitation. The triplets look at each other, all three of them shifting to sit more comfortably, clearly settling in for the long haul. 「It feels strange when people call me a girl, that's all. Jiewen said it's because Sensei raised me like a boy, but I don't think that's right either.」

「Chinese people say that a lot, though.」 Hu crosses his arms over his chest, folding his legs under himself. 「It just means he never kept you from doing anything because you're a girl. Lots of people in the Dome got that growing up, with the kaiju and all.」

「And some guys got raised like girls, it doesn't make them any less guys.」 Cheung cocks his head to the side, eyes rolling thoughtfully to the ceiling. 「Unless they really wanted to go all the way, I guess. You know Wen Jiayi?」

「Jiayi got new IDs three years ago,」 Hu explains. 「Tendo got it done, but then he wanted to reprogram the entire database to make changes like that easier.」 Hu'd been roped into helping-- most ID entries are impossible to change once entered into the system, other than the scheduled photo updates every two years. It was a simple enough procedure to do some research and change a toggle in the backend code, but Tendo had insisted on a system-wide overhaul anyway, to update a seven-year-old OS.

Mako's lip curls, nose wrinkling slightly. 「Don't you think it's unfair that boys get to do whatever they want?」 

「You're trying to say you want to be a man?」

Before Mako can answer, Cheung bumps Jin lightly on the shoulder. 「Just said that wasn't right, either.」

「So 中性, 無性 stuff?」 The two older triplets turn their heads, simultaneously pinning Hu with a look that prompts him to continue. 「Someone I dated brought it up once. 'In between' or 'neither'. It's a Japanese X-gender thing, so I didn't really get it. Nothing personal, Mako.」

After a noncommittal gesture, Hu's already pulled out his phone and booted up the search engine. 「I don't think of myself as a girl or a boy,」 Mako answers slowly, quickly memorizing the terms to look up later, 「I just think of me as myself.」

Jin furrows his brows, pulling a pillow to his chest and leaning forward onto it. 「Isn't that normal?」 he asks, leaning sideways to glance over Hu's arm, reading off his screen upside down. 「Who thinks about 'acting like a woman' or 'acting like a man' all the time when monsters are coming out of the ocean? Techs could call themselves giraffes and as long as they keep building Jaegers, that's fine by us.」

「I think you three are abnormal,」 Mako says lightly, flashing them an affectionate smile. 「Everyone else is obsessed with this kind of thing.」

「Ah,」 Hu says suddenly, kicking his feet out in front of him and putting away his phone, looking thoughtful. 「I know what you mean. People always say 'girls shouldn't do this' or 'boys have to do that'. If someone's good at something and they want to do it, everyone else should just mind their own business.」

「People used to take you for a boy all the time before you grew your hair out,」 Jin probes, 「didn't that annoy you a lot?」

「I don't mind so much when people call me a girl, but I don't feel like one all the time.」 Mako glances at Hu, his slow nod, then continues, a bit encouraged. 「I don't like it when people call me a boy either, though.」

「So should we stop referring to you as a girl?」 Cheung looks at his brothers, the three of them quickly adapting to new information, as they've always done. 「That's pretty easy, '他' isn't specific anyway. English would suck for you, though.」

「It was never really an issue with you three,」 Mako says, feeling an unnamed tension ease for the first time in a long while. Still, the triplets look perturbed, as if suddenly unsure of how they should be conducting themselves. 「But... if you would rather be seeing someone who's made up their mind, I won't take it personally.」

Cheung shakes out of it first, both hands rising to stop that train of thought before it can progress. 「We like _you_ , Mako. Hu's dated guys, this kind of thing isn't really an issue for us. We were just thinking that this isn't a concept we hear about a lot.」

「Yeah, 'that kind' of thing is hard to talk about.」 Hu pulls his knees up to his chest, plucking at the hem of the shorts he wears to sleep. 「Your parents gave you a body, so out of respect for them, you need to care for it the way it is.」

「That's not wrong, exactly. It just means that it's society's problem if someone can't live how they want to because of their body.」

「I'm not at that point,」 Mako says, quickly before the conversation derails entirely into a debate about Confucian values and modernity, as they've argued for hours about before. 「But even between Japan and China, there's such a difference.」

「Anyway, give us a warning if you--」 Jin pauses, trying to figure out how to articulate his doubts and giving up on sensitivity, 「decide to do anything drastic.」

「I don't know where I stand on any of this.」 Mako falls backwards, head narrowly missing the metal footboard of Jin's bed. 「But I don't have any intention of changing how I look or act, so maybe I shouldn't bring it up.」

「That's what you get for being well-adjusted in this kind of world,」 Jin teases as Mako rolls off the bed and stands. He follows after, dragging Hu up along with him. They all know how Stacker Pentecost operates, watching Mako grow up under his care, about as stable as anyone they've ever known. 「You keep expecting things to make sense because the Marshal does.」

Hu squeezes Mako's shoulder, then stretches his arms behind his head, yawning, spine popping as it curves back. 「Besides, who says you have to decide now or you can't change your mind later? C'mon, it's late.」

「Life's too short to stress about this stuff,」 sighs Cheung as he walks Mako to the door. _Ours especially_ , he doesn't say; Mako gives him an anguished look anyway, the expression easily chased away with a soft kiss and a tight hug. 「Do what makes you happy, and whatever you decide is fine by us.」

「Okay,」 Mako says from the doorway. The triplets look back, all three with their arms crossed over their chests, identical sleepy grins and postures in the warm, cozy light of their room. 「I will.」

**Author's Note:**

> assume established mako/triplets for this one ayy. [x-post](http://flybaldies.tumblr.com/post/101040231713/some-other-mako-triplets-au-makos-still-trying) on tumblr.
> 
> i avoided using any pronouns at all for mako in this one, since it seems unfair for a nonbinary character to be pigeonholed anywhere by the narrative. esp in a piece specifically centered around mako trying to figure out something as complicated as gender identity


End file.
